Haiti: Still Starving 23 Days Later

You can walk down many of the streets of Port-au-Prince and see absolutely no evidence that the world community has helped Haiti.
Twenty-three days after the earthquake jolted Haiti and killed over 200,000 people, as many as a million people have still not received any international food assistance.

On February 4, the UN World Food Program reported they had given at least some food, mostly 55-pound bags of rice, to over a million people. The UN acknowledged that it still needs to reach another one million people. The 55-pounds of rice are expected to provide a two-week food ration for a family. Beans and cooking oil are scheduled to come later.

The Associated Press reported that people in Haiti, at small protests, were holding up banners reading, “Help us, we’re starving.”
Over a million people are displaced. About 10,000 families are in tents, the rest are living under sheets, blankets and tarps.

One of the people living under a sheet is a brand new mother with her one-day-old baby. The New York Times reported that Rosalie Antoine, 33, and her one-day-old baby were living in a neighbor’s yard with puppies and chickens under a sheet in the Bel-Air neighborhood of Port-au-Prince.

Haiti and the United Nations estimate 250,000 children under the age of seven are living in temporary housing. Most need vaccinations.
Flavia Cherry, of the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action, this week witnessed a pregnant, double amputee give birth on the ground in one of the tent camps without any medical assistance at all. “This poor mother had nothing, no milk, no clothing for the baby, nothing!”

Even people who can afford to purchase food are having a difficult time. A 55-pound bag of rice costs 40 percent more today than it did before the earthquake. Dr. Louise Ivers, a Partners in Health physician in Port-au-Prince, reported a 25 kg (55 pounds) bag of rice that sold for $30 US dollars (1,207 Haitian gourdes) before the quake, now costs $42 US dollars (1,690 Haitian gourdes).

The World Food Program reported prices are still rising and people outside the earthquake zone are having difficulty meeting their basic food needs.

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